Two federal opposition party leaders argue that Ottawa should simply let the country’s struggling oil and gas industry wither and die.

Elizabeth May, the parliamentary leader of the Green Party, said to reporters yesterday “my heart bleeds for people who believe the sector is going to come back. It’s not,” and acknowledged that the industry is in need of financial stimulus to help them transition away from oil and gas.

Yves-François Blanchet of the Bloc also expressed the need for Canada to allocate federal funding to renewable energy projects rather than pipelines and said “it is clear that there is no long-term future for that kind of industry, so let’s help them go somewhere else, something which is more green,” later last night on CBC’s Power & Politics.

The global demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) has taken a serious hit as social distancing measures have impacted the need for power usage. China, India, Japan and South Korea are usually the largest market for the commodity, but have experienced a substantial drop in demand.

“Our customers have made some modifications to their production and cargo loading plans… in response to current market conditions, but Cameron LNG is not at liberty to discuss those details,” Anya McInnis, a spokesperson for Cameron said, reports Reuters.

The United States’ production of LNG has also begun to rise, and is currently at about $4 per mmBtu, including the shipping cost, findings from analysts at Bernstein say. LNG buyers have cancelled close to 20 cargoes for June, and as U.S. LNG prices continue to rise past prices in Europe and Asia, this will give purchasers another reason to cancel imports.

Meanwhile, over 60 environmental regulations have been rescinded since the Trump administration gained power, some major regulations having been reversed in the last few weeks amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Enbridge Inc. announced today that it will be cutting its operational costs by C$300 million by making jobs cuts, delaying C$1 billion of its capital spending and decreasing the pay rates that executives earn, reports Bloomberg.

According to Enbridge, the output produced by its Mainline crude pipeline dropped by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) in April due to the fall in global demand. The company has yet to announce how many job cuts will be made.

In other news, Murphy Oil Corp. has decided it will be closing its offices based in Calgary and El Dorado Arkansas and will be merging its workforce to its Houston office, which it will use as its new corporate headquarters.

“The company recognizes the hardship this decision causes to many in El Dorado and Calgary, and we are committed to treating all those impacted consistent with past practices and plan to offer appropriate severance arrangements,” the president and CEO of Murphy Oil Roger W. Jenkins stated in a company news release, reports the Calgary Herald.

While Calgary’s office hosts 110 employees, the company has yet to reveal how many jobs will be lost.